Major Iraqi dam in danger of collapse

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Thue
Except for the fact that the Wikipedia article says that one of China's foremost hydrologists was critical about the construction.

That was why I was wondering if the Chinese could access that page. It speaks to a huge government screwup to me.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Riesstiu IV
Apparently the dam has had structural problems since it was built back in the 80s.

Most of the construction work in Iraq is substandard. I don't see why their dams should be different.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by VetLegion
If you can get a couple of bad dams lined up, you can perhaps get lucky and have a massive chain falure as water breaks one after another. Spectacular. The Chinese managed to do this back in the 1975, lining up 62 dams to achieve a world record.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Yes, there was also a terrible human cost. But if we can't joke about it what can we?

To be fair back in those days Mao was busy executing or locking up in reeducation camps all of the "stinking intellectuals" including most of the civil engineers. That meant virtually everything built in China in the 60's and 70's was total rubbish built by untrained peasants who had little idea of how to do it properly. Those dams were destined to break before they were even built.

[Straybow]

Most were built in the '50s and early '60s, when all those annoying civil engineers were pestering Mao about improperly building the dams. Then he locked them up in '66.

[CerberusIV]

There is a bit more in the BBC version I saw.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7069109.stm

I particularly like this bit

It was built on water-soluble gypsum, which caused seepage within months of its completion and led investigators to describe the site as "fundamentally flawed".

Presumably good ol' Saddam wanted a dam and any engineers who tried to point out it wasn't a good idea are buried under it.

[Chemical Ollie]

Dam of Saddam. Damn!

[Patroklos]

Reading the Wiki article on the Chinese damns, it seems there was a competent engineer in charge of the project but all of his safety measures proved to expensive/time consuming for the party bosses.

As for the Iraqi dams, considering all the pre war hype about securing them as fast as possible to keep Saddam from blowing them up, I am suppriseds certain groups have not made a greater effort to do that themselves.

[Arrian]

Water: the original weapon of mass destruction...

-Arrian

[ZEE]

give those bastards something REAL to complain about now at least...

[dannubis]

Yes AAHZ, because they all deserve to be wiped off the face of the planet. All of them.

[ZEE]

hey talk to God. Noah had to deal with the same stuff...

[Dinner]

You honestly believe Iraqis would have blown up dams when the majority of their population lived in the flood planes of those dams? There is no way in hell they would have done that. Though they would rush the building of those dams and not done the job properly if there was enough pressure from above.

[Vanguard]

Banqiao Dam

I repeat: 1 meter of water in a day. 1 meter of water in a day.

We got 40cm in two weeks here and some of the smaller dams were in danger.

[dannubis]

Originally posted by AAHZ
hey talk to God. Noah had to deal with the same stuff...

Noah had to build a dam ?

Damn !


On a side note,

Finally the US can bring something to the Iraqi people other than war and guess what, the chicken hawks on this forum are *****ing about getting out. Good to see you are having your priorities straight

[ZEE]

Originally posted by dannubis
Noah had to build a dam ?

Damn !

Noah dealt with a flood that wiped out all of known civilization... and they didnt have the media telling them, "God is extremely pissed off at us today and is going to wipe us out and start all over again. In other news we have just discovered the secrets of Sodomy!"

so if they want to leave let them leave and survive. if they want to complain and blow up marketplaces instead.. then...

tough cookies.